Chapter 3: The Rain Falls

Within the council hall, things had come to a standstill. Soldiers and officials eyed each other warily in the suffocating stillness as the Emperor stared down the pretender to the throne. The sigh of shifting silk and rustle of linen against leather echoed unnaturally in the silence.

"This is getting nowhere," Sa Hanjun suddenly announced, dispelling the trancelike atmosphere of the hall. A trace of impatience furrowed his brows. "I'm sorry, Your Majesty. I had hoped that this transition could go smoothly and quickly, but we are running out of time. If you do not relinquish the throne willingly, I'm afraid we're going to have to force you to do so." At the sharp flick of his hand, the bulk of the men brandished their swords and gathered in the center of the hall, their pounding footsteps reverberating with barbaric loudness in the closed room. At the same time, the violet-haired man retreated and was ensconced within a protective cocoon of men.

None of the officials dared raise a voice in protest, save for a querulous cry of "Traitors!" from a wizened minister that was quickly suppressed with a threatening wave of a sword.

The Emperor's face was an expressionless mask as his piercing stare challenged the men before him. Despite their fervour, most were unable to face down him down, and their sword arms seemed to quail in the cold fire of that glare. "There is no mercy for traitors," he declared in a soft, frosty voice that carried to the corners of the room. "Put away your swords." He took a step forward, towards the men, and they shrank back half a step, awed and cowed by the untouchable aura of the Emperor.

"Stand firm!" Sa Houjun snarled at them. "We act by grace of the Heavens! Do not let this false Emperor make you lose sight of our divine mission!"

Ran Shuuei's eyes darted around the room discreetly, gauging the other officials around him. In this room, other than Seiran and the Emperor, only he and Grand Tutor Sou were masters of the sword. Armed men stood between them and the dais, but he knew Seiran could be trusted to keep the Emperor safe until they were able to join the fray. His friend Kouyuu, of course, would be useless in a fight, but he was glad to see that the level-headed (for the most part, at least) young man had joined Kou Shuurei and kept a calming, restraining arm on her shoulder, a steady stream of whispers seemingly keeping her from drawing attention to herself. He felt a small twinge of relief; the confident, intelligent girl was not the type to submissively stand an insult to the throne, after all.

"Capture him."

The three men in front hesitated briefly, glancing between themselves, at the imposing figure of the Emperor before them, and finally behind at the dignified man behind them. Seeming to draw strength from his presence, they inched forward cautiously.

The moment the men began moving towards the Emperor, Seiran wordlessly drew out the concealed Kanchou and tossed it towards Ryuuki, ignoring the surprised yelp of the soldier standing guard nearby. Without even turning, an arm flashed out to grasp onto the sheath. The sword was drawn with a steely hiss, and within a heartbeat, the men advancing upon him fell with a sickening thump to the ground. With a quick snap of his wrist, Ryuuki flicked the blood off the venerable sword and stared at the rebels with a challenging glare.

Shuuei held his breath as he waited for the insurgents' reaction. The situation would deteriorate rapidly if they decided to start targeting the unarmed and highly vulnerable officials in the room. However, the haughty arrogance of Sa Hanjun and the self-declared Prince Seien suggested that the thought of using the surrounding officials as hostages and guarantors of the Emperor's compliance would never occur to them in a thousand years. No, they were not the sort to think that men of power were beholden to their subordinates. The armed men guarding them were meant, rather, to prevent them from resisting and sacrificing every drop of blood to protect the Emperor.

Ran Shuuei smirked.

Pretending to fidget like the rest of the frightened court, he cast his eyes about as nonchalantly as possible. The attention of the soldier nearest to him was riveted on the scene before the Emperor, mouth agape in horror as he stared at his comrades bleeding to their deaths.

Him.

Within the frozen tableau of first blood, he discreetly maneuvered himself into position.

In that moment, the hall shook from a thundering crash at the barred wooden doors. Took them long enough, Shuuei thought drily as the officials in the room started and gibbered at the sudden sound.

"Cut him down! Now!" Sa Hanjun commanded with a hint of desperation, his focus wavering between the unyielding, imperious form before him and the doors behind. "Before we lose everything we've fought for!" The knot of men surrounding the pale-haired man and the pretender shuffled hastily away from the entrance while a wall of soldiers surged towards the Emperor. Swiftly, Shuuei grabbed his target and twisted the sword out of his grasp. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Grand Tutor Sou and Seiran handily incapacitate their own chosen targets and arm themselves with swords.

Seiran cut down yet another soldier as he systematically worked his way towards his brother. Grand Tutor Sou covered the left flank, while Ran Shuuei appeared to be closing in from the front. Only a handful of men remained in combat, forming a ring of swords around Ryuuki. The rest of the enemy was either occupied with keeping the officials cowed and out of the fray or amassed to the side of the entrance, stranding protectively around their leaders. A few were futilely bracing the barred doors, but the soldiers outside, likely Commander General Haku's men, were close to destroying them. The tide of battle seemed to flow in their favour, but Seiran would not rest easy until he was standing by his brother's side.

A sudden glint caught his eye. Jerking his head around, he noticed that some of the men hanging back had notched their short bows. And those dangerously glinting arrow heads were pointed straight at Ryuuki.

His chest tightened. He couldn't breathe. His mind's eye saw a tiny shivering form, bruised and beaten and too much alone. "Watch out!" were the only words he could force out of his constricted throat, but they were too weak, too frail, dissolving in the clanging and banging of swords. His legs were moving by themselves, three meters stretching like an eternity between them. He didn't feel the swords slashing at him as he ran. All he could focus on was Ryuuki's unprotected back—vulnerable, always so vulnerable.

In a room filled with the metallic sounds of ringing swords, the dull thudding of arrows hitting hardened leather armour was jarring.

Shuurei gasped in shock as her eyes filled with tears. "Seiran!" Her voice was hoarse in fear as she watched the man—more friend than guardian, and more family than friend—toppling so slowly before her eyes. No … no … NO! This can't be happening!

Ryuuki spun around, his eyes widening in horror as his brother fell towards him.

He didn't think of secrets and conspiracy, of turmoil and confusion, of political instability and civil war. What did they matter, when his brother was injured and dying in front of his eyes? The brother who tousled his hair, patched his wounds and kissed his hurt away. The brother who was everything to him that his mother and father and all other brothers weren't.

A scream tore from his throat.

"Ani-ue!"

His piercing cry sliced through the sound of frantic battle, and everyone froze as they stared at the scene before them.

"Ani-ue!" Ryuuki cried again as he dropped the glittering, blood-streaked Kanchou to catch the falling body.

"Your Majesty!" Ran Shuuei yelled desperately as he hurriedly disarmed his two shocked opponents and knocked them unconscious. "Pick up your sword!"

He needn't have worried. In the moment of Ryuuki's shout, the stunning revelation had brought the pitched battle to a grinding halt. Shuuei managed to slash his way to the Emperor's side with minimal resistance. Sword pointed defensively at the enemy, he tugged on Ryuuki's arm urgently. "Get up and fight, damn it!"

But Ryuuki did not seem to hear him. Eyes wide, jaw slack in disbelief, he stared at the bloodied form in his arms and his stomach heaved at the grotesque sight of arrows protruding from his brother's back.

"Ani-ue!" he cried desperately, his voice quivering with unshed tears. "Don't leave me again!"

It wasn't right. It wasn't right for his strong brother to look so pale and lifeless.

Half-lidded with pain, the ever-gentle eyes looked up at him, soft and tender. A trembling hand struggled to reach up, and Ryuuki grasped it fiercely with his own. Seiran took a shuddering breath, and Ryuuki could hear the blood gurgling in his lungs.

"Ryuu … ki" It was more a sigh than a whisper. Ryuuki cradled him close, trying to catch his words like a child trying to catch raindrops in his hands. His ears blocked out the crash of the doors being smashed open and the jangle of metal and leather as Imperial soldiers rushed into the room. He didn't bother to notice Commander General Haku keeping the Uringun focused on subduing the confused invaders as they tried to resolve the sight of the tattered form in his arms with the pale-faced, violet haired man staring at the two with fearful eyes.

"Why?" Ryuuki whispered brokenly, "Why is it always you protecting me? Why have I never been able to do anything for you?"

"More than … enough," Seiran forced out the words, the sound tight and thin and barely audible in the cacophony of stomping boots and thumping of armoured knees hitting the marble floor. Just Ryuuki's presence and unswerving trust had always been more than enough, no matter whether it was back then, when they were just two boys against the world, or now, with his younger brother seated on this throne and himself as his shadow. The ghost of a smile that tugged at the ends of his mouth seemed to take an inhuman amount of effort. "Thank … you." His head drooped tiredly.

"Don't go! Don't leave me!" Ryuuki cried in despair. "Hold on, please!"

Seiran's eyes tightened, as if to say, I'll try.

Then, the light in those eyes faded, and his eyelids closed over them. Clutching the body tightly, Shi Ryuuki, the 20-year old boy Emperor, wailed brokenly like an injured child, not caring who heard him, not caring about his dignity—not caring about anything except that his world, the world that had once been just him and the warm embrace of his brother, was fading. He didn't hear the commotion around him, nor the sobbing of Shuurei who had pushed her way through the throng and was now huddled at his side.

Sa Hanjun was rooted where he stood, unheeding of rough handling of the Imperial soldiers who had finally burst into the hall as they grappled him and forced him to his knees. His mind was numb, unable to process the speed at which the tables had turned on him and how the situation could have slipped so utterly and so unpredictably from his control. And when some form of conscious thought finally started trickling into his stalled mind, it was a single cry: Why?! And as if that one word unlocked a deluge of resentment-fueled anger, furious thoughts fought their way to the surface. Why was Prince Seien here? Why was Prince Seien here and by the Emperor's side? Why was he here, by the Emperor's side, and unknown? How could he stand being no one, when he could have been standing above them all? How could he do something so illogical and wreck these carefully wrought plans, condemning him to the ignoble fate of a traitor?

As Sa Hanjun drowned in his helpless rage, Ran Shuuei was scanning the room. The insurgents were all surrounded, unresisting, their fight leached out of their spirits. Unbidden, he felt a twinge of pity as his gaze fell upon their broken forms—they were as much victims of Sa Hanjun's machinations as the court, and he wondered if there was room for mercy in these terrible times. In the center of the hall, the Emperor and Shuurei were incapacitated by grief as Grand Tutor Sou hovered protectively next to them, face pained in its restraint. Commander General Haku was still prodding his soldiers in their round-up, but each of his words seemed to be bitten off with an unusual edge for the typically jovial man. Senior Secretaries Kou Reishin and Kou Kijin stood to the side in tense, urgent conference with advisor Shou, while the other officials were too stunned by this turn of events to be of any use.

At least things seemed to be in control here.

His eyes caught that of his friend Kouyuu, who had woven his way to the breached doors. After a quick nod, Kouyuu rushed out towards the residence of the Imperial physician.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, Shuuei knelt beside his Emperor. One hand reached out—hesitated—before probing for the jugular vein along Seiran's neck.

A faint flutter. His breath caught.

"Your Majesty," he began softly.

Ryuuki did not seem to register his presence, the tears streaking down his face and his wide eyes fixed on Seiran making him seem younger and so unlike the confident Emperor he had come to know. His heart ached to see it.

"Your Majesty," he repeated, more insistently. His hand came up to grip Ryuuki's arm tightly—a gesture to both comfort and demand attention. "Let me take him to the surgery room … every moment we lose here will cost us."

Ryuuki started, as if returning to his senses and hurriedly transferred Seiran into Shuuei's arms with stiff, jerky motions reflecting the panic in his eyes. "I'll come too," he choked out in a raspy voice as he sniffed and tried to wipe away his tears with all the awkwardness of a little child.

"No, Your Majesty," Shuuei responded firmly, staring straight into watery eyes that had shot up to glare at him. "You won't be able to do anything for him anyway."

A delicate hand grasped Ryuuki's as Shuurei whispered in a quavering voice, "I-I'll go with them. I won't leave his side until you get there."

Shuuei cast her a quick approving glance and continued, "There are still things you must do here." He looked meaningfully over at the disarmed insurgents, restrained and herded together at sword point.

Shi Ryuuki raised his reddened eyes. His nostrils flared with suppressed rage, and his fingers flexed as if they yearned to grasp a sword. He bit his lip, then nodded wordlessly to Shuurei and Shuuei, who quickly rose to their feet and left the room. At the Commander General's sharp gesture, a retinue of soldiers detached themselves and fell into a defensive formation around the exiting pair. Ryuuki spared one last glance at his brother, cradled carefully in Shuuei's arms before shutting his eyes tightly for a moment, willing himself to calm down. When he finally stood up again, it was with the regal, aloof bearing of the Emperor of Saiunkoku.

Commander General Haku strode up before him, his face strained and eyes downcast, and knelt down on one knee. "Your Majesty. All the traitors have been captured. What would you have us do with them?"

Shi Ryuuki swept his eyes over the insurgents. The eyes of the men who had loosened those arrows were especially haunted. The Sa clan had given them a dream, a sliver of hope, and blindly, they had managed to destroyed it with their own hands. Now they knelt huddled together, trembling in despair, eyes studiously averted from the Emperor and fixed on their treacherous, treacherous hands. Their bows had long since been let fall onto the floor from unfeeling fingers—there was no will left to fight, no will left, perhaps, to live in such shame and infamy.

"Lock them up," he declared in a flat, detached voice, before directing his words back to the dispirited men. "Your fates hang on the same thread as our royal brother."

His icy gaze then settled on Sa Hanjun and his chosen imposter, a pulse of rage surging as he laid eyes on the violet hair. "For plotting insurrection, for besmirching the name of our royal brother, and for inflicting grievous harm to his person, do not expect any mercy." His knuckles whitened as he fisted his hands tightly against the shaking fury that threatened to overcome him.

A deep breath.

"Interrogate these two thoroughly," he then bit out with intense composure. "Root out their movement and destroy it. We will pronounce our judgement when it is done."

With that, Emperor Shi Ryuuki stalked out of the hall, leaving the officials pale and drained in the wake of his incandescent rage.

And when he was out of sight of the hall doors, he grabbed the hem of his robes and broke into a desperate run.


Author note:

Well, there it is. Hope you didn't expect anything more complex, because this story really was just supposed to be a short story to scratch my own intense itch for more development of the brotherly relationship between Seiran and Ryuuki. The series has been just too too stingy on that front.

In any case, thanks to reanseih's kind reminder that it has been nine years since chapter 2, I went back to look at my files and found that I had chapter 3 mostly written. And given the very salient point that since it has been nine years, I might as well post what I have … well, I brushed up the chapter, added dialogue, filled up gaps in the narrative, added more descriptions and scenes, and here it is. It's not wholly the chapter I wanted it to be once upon a time, but it's better than not being a chapter at all. My sincerest apologies for the delay.

Back when I was first working on the chapter, I was really torn between having Seiran protect Ryuuki or vice versa. Ryuuki getting the chance to protect his brother for once and becoming incapacitated and Seien being pressured to oversee things in the meanwhile would have been an intriguing route to explore, but in the end, I felt it had to be the big brother doing the protecting.

In these intervening nine years, I've spent little time writing, and any such writing was of the scientific, professional type. I never watched Saiunkoku Monogatari past episode 20 either. If there is shoddiness in the writing or inaccuracies of canon (anything before episode 20, at least), please do let me know.